Bamboo, zhu (竹), is one of the most admired plants in Chinese culture. Poets and painters made it a picture of the ideal gentleman: upright, modest and hard to break.
One of the Four Gentlemen and the Three Friends of Winter
The plum blossom, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo are known as the Four Gentlemen, because each is said to embody a virtue of the ideal Confucian scholar. Pine, bamboo and the Chinese plum make up the Three Friends of Winter, since all three survive the harsh winter months. The Met describes the trio as a picture of how a lofty person perseveres in the harshest surroundings. Our guide to plum blossom meaning covers bamboo's flowering companion.
Bending without breaking
Bamboo stays green through winter, and it bends under wind and snow without snapping. Chinese tradition read this as integrity and endurance: the gentleman may bend with hardship, but he does not break. The Tang poet Bai Juyi saw resolve in its deep roots, honor in its straight stem and modesty in its hollow center. The Song poet Su Shi wrote that he would rather eat without meat than live without bamboo. Without meat a man grows thin, he said, but without bamboo he grows vulgar.
Ink bamboo: Wen Tong and Zheng Banqiao
Painting bamboo in plain black ink became an art of its own. The Northern Song painter Wen Tong (died 1079) specialized in it and shaped how later generations painted the plant. An idiom grew out of Su Shi's account of his method: xiong you cheng zhu (胸有成竹), "the whole bamboo is already in his chest," meaning a plan worked out before you begin. The story goes that he watched the bamboo around his house in every season and weather until he could paint it from memory.
In the 18th century Zheng Xie (1693 to 1765), better known as Zheng Banqiao, left official life and became one of the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou, renowned for bamboo and orchids. The Met holds his four-scroll Misty Bamboo on a Distant Mountain, dated 1753.
Jie jie gao: rising joint by joint
A bamboo stem climbs in stacked sections. In Chinese decorative art the joints are read as jie jie gao sheng (节节高升), rising higher joint by joint. A stone window carved with bamboo joints at the Lin Family Shrine in Taichung is explained both ways: as noble integrity, and as rising step by step. Bamboo was worn, too. The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco holds a Ming dynasty jade hairpin shaped like a bamboo stalk.
Bamboo at the New Year
The old New Year custom actually called jie jie gao used other plants. The Ming writer Tian Rucheng recorded people tucking holly, cypress sprigs and sesame stalks into the eaves on New Year's Day to wish for daily progress. Bamboo's own New Year role was louder. Firecrackers are still called baozhu (爆竹), "exploding bamboo," because people once burned bamboo to celebrate, and its crackle was believed to drive off monsters. The Song statesman Wang Anshi wrote that a year is gone amid the crackling of exploding bamboo. A Tang anecdote also gave the phrase zhu bao ping'an (竹报平安), "bamboo reports that all is well," still written on spring couplets.
Bamboo at Buddha.store
More bamboo pieces are in our bracelets.
